A plan to build up Guam to support the deployment of some 5,000 Marines, delayed repeatedly over environmental protests and economic negotiations, is still several years out. In the interim, the Corps has started deploying forces on nearby Tinian Island, where the Inola Gay took off for Japan in 1945 with its atomic bomb. Marines are training there in austere conditions until a more substantial range is built.

They also operate in the Philippines and there is talk of deploying them to Vietnam.

Lt. Gen. John Toolan, Jr., commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, described the effect of sequestration on the reinvigorated commitment to Asia-Pacific: “It’s going to hurt,” he said in a talk to the San Diego Military Advisory Council.

“This upcoming year, the damage will be minimal. But eventually it’s going to hit into our ability to deploy. Transportation just crushes us. Whether it’s theater security engagement and sending a team out to Indonesia… or flying the battalion altogether, kit and caboodle, over to Okinawa. So it may cause us to stay at home more.”

The rebalance of forces to the Pacific is costly but necessary, Amos said. Until more Navy ships are available, the Corps may rely on commercial ships or other means of transporting extra Marines around the region.

“Talking about rebalancing to the Pacific, the pivot or whatever you want to call it, the fact is there are not enough ships right now to move the Marines around. We are going to get there. But what do we do in the meantime?” Amos asked. “When you start running out of money, you start looking for other ways you can accomplish the mission.”

The service has no choice if it is to remain vital as a crisis response force.

“When things are bad people look around and go, 'OK who can get there overnight?' And they typically say 'Where are the Marines? Send in the Marines!' So we have to be ready … to be that insurance policy, that hedge force for uncertainty,” Amos said.